I'm trying to come up with some clear and concise names for a Permission class that lets you check if a permission is, was, or will be, allowed/denied. I'm at a loss for what to call the future tense.
class Permission:
def can_read()
def could_read()
def will_read()?
def will_be_readable()?
I'm most partial to will_read(), but it sounds funny. will_be_readable() is clear, but its kinda long, and will_be_read() sounds misleading.
Yeah, English really has a problem here, with no future tense of "can"! What about switching to (say) readable_now, readable_past, readable_future? If past and future have specific meanings in your case better naming could be worked out here, I'm sure.
Since you are looking for a permission class, the code will be formulated as a question:
if (the_user.can_read()) ...
if (the_user.can_read_past()) ...
if (the_user.can_read_future()) ...
Apart from that I would try to maintain equal prefixes for the semantically equal function, and I would leave off the suffix for the default/most likely case. I have no real problem sacrificing grammatical correctness for a logical naming structure, even though I like to gear code towards natural language. So something like that is what I would be going for.
The will_read() sounds more like an event that is triggered before the action.
EDIT: I am aware that "can_read_past" may be percieved as "can read old stuff". Maybe Scott Evernden's suggestion is better?
Since it is related to if a permission is allowed/denied, maybe there is a more descriptive word than read?
can_authorize
authorized
scheduled_to_authorize
was, is, and will_be is clearest to me.. or maybe readable_before, readable_now, readable_later